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We invent things that help all people.

We empower inventors, technologists, and students to publish, find, and collaborate on invention ideas through direct coaching, team formation, curation of work, publication, co-working and learning events, and, in some cases, material support.

Why Public Invention Matters to the Future

Invent things that help humanity

We challenge the notion that inventions should be reserved for patents and profits. Rather, we invite fellow builders of the future to use their skills for humanitarian purpose. We want to make the future better for everyone. To do this we remove, rather than add, legal barriers to the free use of our inventions. All work done with Public Invention is free and open to all under share-alike public licenses.

Who is a Public Inventor?

Born from a child whose books, comics and films put the idea of wanting to be a great inventor into their head and inspired them to attract other friends where together they could form a league of inventors who would work on solving big and important problems that would prevent them from feeling too lonely.

What can we do to prevent these children from feeling alone or “rare” in society rather than seeing their peculiarity as something special?

Create an environment where we let them dare to fail, be disruptive, creative and innovative, by learning how to weld circuits, electricity, electronics, microprocessors, build with 3D printers and publish their ideas.

Public Invention makes a difference by inventing things for humanitarian purposes that help all people. Training inventors, technologists and students to find a PIHE space where they collaborate and conceptualize their ideas in inventions through team building, job selection, learning events, joint work and, in some cases, material support.

At public Invention, we believe that the public inventor of the future is a person who is part of a community that embraces the interdisciplinary talents that combine to shape the future: inventiveness, design, writing, art, photography, engineering, administration, fundraising. All our work is in the service of promoting humanitarian invention.

Volunteer with Public Invention

Public Invention forms invention teams around humanitarian invention projects. We need Invention Coaches above all else. But we also need artists, writers, social media help, and all will find a place for all kinds of technologies: biology, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, computer science, and math.

Donate

Public Invention was granted 501c3 status by the IRS in November 2019. Please consider making a donation. Right now, donations will pay for travel to conferences, parts for the robot, supplies for the rapid E. coli project, and allow us to begin developing cookstove technologies for the developing world.

Recent Projects

Check out some of our recent public invention projects

VentMon

Ventilators are life-critical components that can provide both invasive and non-invasive respiratory support for COVID-19 patients. Particularly when used for critically ill invasively ventilated patients, these are life-critical machines that must be extensively tested and verified.

Ventilator Verification Project

This is a project to match teams building emergency COVID-19 ventilators to teams able to verify the clinical suitability of those ventilators. The goal is to give clinicians the confidence to deploy a last-resort device by proving that is has been functionally tested, burned-in for 48 hours, and is clinically suitable.

Project #51: Moonrat: A portable Incubator

Public Inventors: Sam Dauenbaugh, Jerry Chang, Shreya Bhatia

Project #48: GlussCon

Public Inventors: Avinash Baskaran